Sunday, December 1, 2013

November Thoughts on Organizing School at Home, Part 1/Novembergedanken zur Organisation der Schule daheim, Teil 1

November is such a grey and quiet month, perfect for thinking and restructuring. After almost three months of teaching on campus, at home, and also being a homemaker, I think I finally have found a way to combine the three, at least for now.

When I started out on this adventure "homeschooling," I kept hearing and reading that homeschooling is not school at home, and that it was not a good idea to stress the "school" part. When I was only homeschooling one child or even two, that made sense, we had lots of time to explore subjects, to loosely structure our days, and to follow rabbit trails. Fast forward ten years later, all of a sudden there are almost five children that are officially school age. The former approach wasn't working so well anymore and I have rethought the advice about being a "school." I have discovered that at this point in our lives it makes more sense to think of us as a school and that it is very helpful to have school hours and non-school hours. When I say "school" I'm not thinking of the schools you find these days, but of the old one-room schoolhouses. We have a small Amish school close by, all the children grades one through eight attend the same school and are taught in the same room. That has become my guiding light for now, and it has been very liberating to try to emulate such a school.

We have always had a rhythm and plan for our days and our work has always centered around the idea of having main lessons. When Jonathan started 8th grade, I noticed that the old main lesson model was not working so well anymore and now I feel the same with Charlotte. Somehow turning 14 brings new challenges to learning and teaching. So I have been thinking about how to combine three styles of homeschooling in my one-room schoolhouse. My three styles are Charlotte Mason education, the classical homeschool movement (especially Laura Berquist), and the Waldorf way of education. When it comes to high school those three styles don't differ so much anymore, but I have been experimenting with a combination of the three for the lower grades as well. Charlotte Mason gives me wonderful book ideas for each grade and I also like the idea of short lessons. Laura Berquist's curriculum is not so different from the Waldorf school curriculum, but she gives me textbooks for each grade. I also like the three stages her interpretation of classical education. The Waldorf approach also has stages of development which go much deeper than any other approach and have been so helpful for all grades. I love the idea of main lessons, to dive into a topic for three to four weeks, then let it rest, and continue with it some weeks later while working on a different subject in the meantime. As I said before those main lessons have worked well up to grade eight, then the young person seems to become kind of slow and the main lessons drag on and on and are not so beneficial anymore. Also, trying to teach more than two main lessons a day in addition to teaching a whole college class and maintaining a functioning household is basically impossible.

So I have devised our own way of combining the three above in a one-room schoolhouse. My first step was to pick out the subjects that are most important for us, the NYS requirements, and for college admittance. They are English, Math, Science, History, Geography, and to a lesser degree, Religion, and Foreign Languages. The first four of these are now the subjects we do first before doing anything else. Each day starts our with:

When I'm teaching German three times each week from 9:00 until 10:05 a.m., all my children have to work independently on Math and English. They settle down on campus at 8:45 a.m. and then work until 10:00 on those subjects. Veronika also does some German during that time because she doesn't need the whole time to finish Math and English. In order to make things easy, we keep those hours also here at home on Fridays, only on Tuesdays we go to church and to the library during that time. I used to have circle time before we started school, but that has not worked out with my teaching job. So after our Math/English time we have a snack and then there is a break. When on campus, we have our snack there and then walk home, when at home, we eat here and the children are free to do what they want until 10:45 a.m. At 10:45 we do our circle time for half an hour. That time also includes our work on Classically Catholic Memory. Then I have a 15 minute time with Flora while the older three do Biblical Greek (Miriam also Latin), and Veronika does Mother Goose in Latin. So we have had some classical elements (English and Math with textbooks), a Waldorf circle time with some classical memory work, and finally short lessons as Charlotte Mason suggests for Greek/Latin.

Hello Eva! This sounds wonderful! An excellent rhythm-- I'm so glad you found how to make it work well! So, are your science, history, and geography still in the morning before lunch? I love these three approaches to curriculum also. I too find they work well together. I have been interested in incorporating catholic classical memory. Perhaps later in this year or even next year I will try it out. Which texts do you use for math? Over the last six years, I have been attempting to use "living" math books. Which I think has worked well for us up to a point-- but this year we switched to Saxon (which I had previously stayed away from:)) and my daughters are actually loving it and leaping forward in their knowledge. Who would have thought? Not me!

Blessings on loving your rich liturgical year of advent along with the rest of your schedule! I look forward to your posts and beautiful pictures. Barbara

Thanks, Barbara, yes we are doing all those subjects before lunch, we eat a late lunch, at 1:00 p.m. It is our main meal, so I start cooking at 12:00. Our afternoons are kind of crazy, we have dance every day, I have office hours once a week, there is art, and now singing.

I was very skeptical about CCM, but the children like it. I would get it with the CD and you do have to make time for it, otherwise it is a waste of money. It is also better for the older children although they advertise it for the younger, at least in my family.

For math I use a mix of Miquon/Key to/Singapore and CalcuLadder for grades 1 through 6 or 7. Then we do a year of New Elementary Math (also from Singapore) and some more Key to booklets. In high school, Jonathan has been using "Saxon Math" (Algebra 1) so far. I think I will use Jacob's for Charlotte. I have also used RightStart Math for a while with Charlotte and Jonathan because they both had some time when they needed a break from Singapore. I don't think there is a perfect math program, that is why I try combining several ones. We do read some living math books, but only as supplements.

Geschichten zu den Kirchenfesten (Christengemein-schaft)

Erleben des Jahreslaufes mit Kindern

Bilder für den Jahreskreis

Für die Kleinsten

Für die Kleinsten

Handgestenspiele: Frühjahr/Sommer

Organizational Skills for Catholic Mothers

A Mother's Rule of Life

Chores/Aufgaben

Managers of Their Chores

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Welcome---Willkommen

Welcome to our homeschooling paths. While working on his dissertation, my husband was once advised to include "untrodden paths" in his research. This has become a motto for our life and homeschool. Walk with us if you like!